The Antique Dealer’s Daughter. Lorna Gray

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СКАЧАТЬ to the use of his hands for the purpose of silencing a journalist. The injury was probably more personal than that. Presumably his father again. ‘Heavens,’ I said again, more sincerely. ‘I’m so sorry.’

      ‘Don’t be.’ A glimmer of a smile before I turned away once more. ‘Or at least if you must feel sympathy, keep it for people like you who’ve had the misfortune of touching an old wound. I think for once I have been worrying about this more than my father does. The problem has its origins in the period before my brother drew all eyes to him, so at least I can’t blame him for all this, and I am finally learning now to understand our value to the newspapers and how to keep it from preying on my sense of proportion. Or, at least, I thought I had but, as you say, my behaviour today proves the contrary, perhaps.’

      A wry twist had entered his voice. He knew I hadn’t said that at all. His willingness to confide a small hint of the old habits that had influenced his recent behaviour was like a deliberate defiance of the distrust that had lurked between us since his arrival here. A peculiar pause slipped in afterwards like a shy beginning of better ease only, from the way he spoke next, it seemed more probable that he was securing the careful rebalancing of peace before the next distress worked its way in. I had a sudden sharp suspicion that he was steering me towards something. Then he only said gently, ‘I didn’t mean to treat you like a child, you know. How old are you?’

      With deliberate tartness I told him, ‘Twenty-one. Just. How old are you?’

      He was unfazed. ‘A considerably more experienced twenty-nine.’ He was teasing me. Beside me, I saw one trousered leg move to cross over the other as he relaxed in his turn and leaned back more comfortably against the wall. I heard the clink as he reset his teacup upon its saucer and set the pair of them down somewhere to one side. Then he said, ‘Were you serious when you said that you don’t want to know what else the man took besides your case?’

      It was done so smoothly that I might have believed he was only making idle conversation. Only that suspicion lurked there waiting to return me to tension. From the tone of his voice I could imagine that he had his head back against the warm brickwork and his eyes closed against the heat of the sun. I didn’t turn to check. I said rather too firmly, ‘I was. Not unless it explains why he should have come to find me now.’ Clearly it didn’t since the Captain remained silent. Now I turned my head. ‘You know, I really don’t know who he is. I don’t know why he came to your house. I swear it isn’t me who brought him to this place. I can’t see how it has turned out to be anything to do with me at all.’

      An eye opened against the glare and rolled down to me. He wasn’t accusing me of anything at all. He asked, ‘Did he follow you to this cottage, do you think?’ He was being very matter-of-fact. I liked him for it. It made it easier to relax. Until it dawned upon me in almost the same moment precisely who he was.

      I was sitting here on the front step to my cousin’s modest little cottage while the squire’s son drank tea and listened as I talked as though we were equals. It was a mistake born of that wonderful glimpse of the familiar that the ringing telephone had given me yesterday. The truth was that in town our paths would quite frankly have never even crossed. Here they had and purely because he was – to borrow a phrase from Mrs Abbey – the new young master of these parts. I realised belatedly that this must simply be the Manor’s equivalent of a pastoral visit to a needy cottager – he didn’t want anything from me at all – and I was making a terrible faux pas.

      First I answered his question hastily, ‘No, I’m absolutely certain he didn’t follow me. It took too long for him to get here. I think he must have gone through my bag at last and found the letter from my cousin. I can’t see how else he thought to come here.’ I added by way of an explanation, ‘She’d written the directions to her house in it.’

      And having brushed off that concern just as quickly as I could, I added rather more formally, ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to sit somewhere more comfortable? I probably shouldn’t be keeping you anyway, having already ruined your day by dragging you out of London in the first place.’ I made to get up, but as I lifted my hand with its teacup – to keep it clear of my knees while I rose – I felt the tug on the delicate china as his hand moved to intercept.

      He said, ‘I’ve already said I’m sorry, so please don’t do this. Don’t run away.’ And he took the teacup from me to set it down beside his own on the broad windowsill to his left. Across the faint rattle as china met brick, he told me with rather too much perception about the real cause of my discomfort, ‘I’m not trying to frighten you about this man. And you don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to, or justify yourself to me either. I’m not accusing you of anything any more, or trying to wade in where I’m not needed. This isn’t my home, you know. I’ve no intention of stepping into my brother’s shoes and acting the part of the new master about this place. And that means I can freely make a promise to leave off undermining the tranquillity of a certain young woman whose only mistake was to expend an absurd amount of energy sorting out a few homely comforts for my father.’

      It was there again; the question that I thought we’d left behind. It was the urge to ask me why I’d done it at all. And the uncomfortably exacting suggestion that it wasn’t enough to simply answer that he’d asked me to.

      As it was, he didn’t ask that. Instead, and a shade too promptly for it to escape feeling like a fresh accusation, he asked, ‘Why are you here? And don’t tell me it’s to holiday with your cousin because Hannis has already told me that she’s in hospital.’

      He must have caught my raised eyebrows as I settled back into my place on the front step, for all that I thought I had turned my head away. I heard him assure me wryly, ‘This isn’t a test, you know. I really am only trying to make conversation.’

      My attention snapped back round to him. ‘Are you?’ I asked. Then I relented. I didn’t want to distrust him any more and this was the price. I told him, ‘This is a holiday. I didn’t even know Phyllis was in hospital until I arrived here yesterday and was met by Danny’s note. And anyway, what else do you call a trip that was supposed to be a change of scene, a brief get-away from the old life in town?’

      ‘You don’t intend to go back, though, do you?’ He was quick, this man.

      ‘How can you tell?’ I asked. I knew why.

      ‘I remember your decisive remark earlier about having no occupation. You don’t intend to go back to – what was it? – a chemist’s shop in Knightsbridge?’

      I was sitting with my weight propped upon my straightened arms now and my hands laid palm down on either side of me upon the stone front step. The stone, the sky, everything, was ablaze and tension eased with a simple exhale of breath. The Captain wasn’t going to presume that I was taking a last solo holiday before preparing for a marriage because there was clearly no ring, so instead, since he had obviously committed to memory everything I’d said, he was going to ask the next inevitable question in the line for a single woman of my age, which was whether I was set to take over the reins of my father’s business now that the old man was hoping to retire. And I’d give my reply as a parody of the Captain’s own remark about being unwilling to step into his brother’s shoes and tell him that I felt the same about antiques. Only that wasn’t strictly true.

      I’d ruled out that career for myself when I’d insisted on leaving school at fourteen. Even then, the routine of running my father’s shop would have been the most respectable choice and back then I might have been meek enough to have accepted it, but my father had been slow to offer it. He’d thought a few years of hard work in the real world would do me some good, rather than rewarding the abandonment of my education by letting me laze within the cosseted life of the family business. He’d also been wary of introducing a young daughter СКАЧАТЬ